the house of her master. John Lander compassionated her
distress, and gave her a large clasp knife, which would more than
recompense her for the loss of the oil, on which the women wiped away
their tears, and fell down on the dust before them, exhibiting
countenances more gladsome and animated than could be conceived.

The mortality of children must be immense indeed here, for almost
every woman they met with on the road, had one or more of those
little wooden images, already mentioned. Wherever the mothers stopped
to take refreshment, a small part of their food was invariably
presented to the lips of these inanimate memorials. The daughters of
civilization may boast of the refinement of their feelings, but under
what circumstances did they ever exhibit a stronger instance of
maternal affection than these rude, untutored mothers of interior
Africa evinced to our travellers. The English mother will frequently
deposit her child in the grave, and a few days afterwards will be
seen joining in all the pleasures and vanities of the world. Whirled
about in a vortex of dissipation, the mother of civilization bears no
memorial about her of the infant that is in its grave; but the
uncivilized African carries about with her the image of her child,
and, in the full force of her maternal affection, feeds not herself
until in her imagination she has fed the being who once was dear to
her. There was something beautifully affectionate in the mother
offering the food to the images of her children, and had a whole
volume been written in display of the African female character, a
more forcible illustration could not have been given of it.

Although Pooya is considered by the natives to be a day's journey
from Jadoo, they only halted to pay their respects to the chief, and
then continued their journey over gentle hills, and through valleys
watered by streams and rivulets, so as to reach Engua in the
afternoon. The soil between the two towns is mostly dry and sterile,
and large masses of ironstone, which looked as if they had undergone
the action of fire, presented themselves almost at every step. The
day was oppressively hot, and as they had been exposed to the sun for
a great number of hours, when they reached Engua, their skin was
scorched and highly inflamed, which proved very painful to them.
Richard Lander was comparatively inured to the climate, but his
brother now begun to feel it severely, he was sore, tired, and
feverish, and l